The Delight Makers Part 12

"Why dare you not tell?" both Say and Okoya inquired. "Has sa nashtio told you not to say anything about it?"

"Not he, but the Koshare Naua." It was like an explosion. Say Koitza felt a terrible pang; she stared vacantly at the wicked lad for a moment, and then turned and went into the kitchen. Shyuote wept aloud; his brother looked down upon him with an expression of mingled compa.s.sion and curiosity.

The doorway was suddenly darkened by a human form, and with the usual _guatzena_ the grandfather, Topanashka, entered the apartment. Okoya stood up quickly and replied,--

"Raua opona."

"What is the boy crying for?" inquired the old man.

"The Corn people tried to hurt him because he threw something at one of their girls," Okoya explained.

"Is that all? I heard scolding and crying going on here, and so I thought I would come and see what was the matter. Where is your yaya?"

Say, when she heard her father's voice, came out and leaned against the entrance to the kitchen. Her face was convulsed, her eyes gla.s.sy.

Topanashka scanned her features quietly and then said in a cold tone,--

"Guatzena."

She understood the meaning of his cold, searching gaze, and gathered all her strength to meet it with composure.

"Shyuote cries also," she said, "because his father sent him home from the fields."

"Why did Zashue do that?"

"This he dare not tell, for the Koshare Naua"--her voice trembled at the mention of the name--"forbade him to say anything about it." Her eyes clung to the features of her father. Topanashka turned away slowly and quietly, and she followed him to the door. As he was crossing the threshold he whispered to her,--

"There is nothing new as yet."

CHAPTER V.

The people of the Water clan dwelt at the western end of the cliffs which border the Tyuonyi on the north. They occupied some twenty caves scooped out along the base of the rock, and an upper tier of a dozen more, separated from the lower by a thickness of rock averaging not over three feet. This group of cave-dwellings--and vestiges thereof are still visible at this day--lay in a re-entering angle formed by the cliffs, which overhang in such a manner as to form a sheltered nook open to the south. Ascent to their base is quite steep, and great heaps of debris cover the slope. The gorge is narrow, a dense thicket interspersed with pine-trees lines the course of the brook, and the declivity forming the southern border of the Rito approaches the bottom in rocky steps, traversed laterally by ledges overgrown with scrubby vegetation.

Vestiges of former occupancy are still scattered about the caves. Some of these furnish a clew to the manner in which the dwellings were formed by sc.r.a.ping and burrowing. Splinters of obsidian and of basalt--sharp fragments, resembling clumsy chisels or knives--served to dig an oblong hole in the soft pumice or tufa of the cliff. After this narrow cavity had penetrated a depth of one or two feet, the artisan began to enlarge it inside, until a room was formed for which the tunnelled entrance served as a doorway. The room, or cell, was gradually finished in a quadrangular or polygonal shape, with a ceiling high enough to permit a person of average size to stand erect. Not unfrequently side rooms were excavated connecting with the first by low apertures, to pa.s.s through which it was necessary to stoop, or even to creep on all fours. These pa.s.sages were too low for doorways, too short to deserve the name of tunnels. Into the front apartment light and air were admitted through the entrance, and sometimes through small window-like apertures. The side cells were utterly dark except where excavated parallel to the face of the rock, when sometimes another entrance was opened to the front, sometimes an air-hole only admitted light and air.

If on the afternoon of the day when Shyuote had his perilous adventure with the young people of the Corn clan, we had been able to peep into the third one of the ground-floor caves, counting from the west end of the group inhabited by the Water people, we should have found the apartment empty; that is, as far as human occupancy was concerned. But not deserted; for while its owner was not there, ample signs of his presence only a short time before could be detected everywhere. In the fireplace wood was smouldering, and a faint smoke rising from this found egress through a crude chimney. This was built over the hearth, with two vertical side slabs of pumice supporting a perforated square flag, over which a primitive flue, made of rubble cemented by mud, led to a circular opening in the front wall of the cave. In a corner stood the frame for the grinding-slabs, or _metates_, and in it the three plates of lava on which the Indian crushes and pulverizes his maize were placed in the convenient slanting position. Not only the prismatic crushing-pins, but freshly ground meal also, lay in the stone casings of the primitive mill, and on these the plates themselves. Deerskins and cotton wraps were rolled in a bundle in another corner. Others hung on a line made of rawhide and stretched across one end of the room, fastened to wooden pins driven into the soft rock. On the floor--to which a thick coating of mud, washed with blood and smoothed, gave a black, glossy appearance--there were beside, here a few stone axes with handles, there some black sooty pots, painted bowls, and finally the inevitable water-urn with wide body and narrow top, decorated in the usual style with geometrical and symbolical figures painted in red and black on whitish ground. The walls of the cave were burnished with burnt gypsum; the ceiling was covered by a thick coat of soot; and a band of yellow ochre, like wainscoting, ran along the base of the sides.

The owner of this troglodytic home, however, is not to be seen; but in a side chamber, which communicates with this apartment through one of the dark and low pa.s.sages just described, a rustling sound is heard, as of some one rummaging about in darkness. After a while a woman's head peeps through the pa.s.sage into the outer room, and little by little the whole body emerges, forcing itself through the narrow opening. She rises and stands erect in front of the hearth, and the sunbeam which still enters the apartment by the round hole above the fireplace strikes her features full and enables us to scan them. The woman into whose dwelling we have pryed, and who stands now in the dim chamber as sole occupant and owner, is Shotaye, Tyope's former wife, and the friend who has given Say Koitza such ill advice.

If Shotaye be a witch, she certainly is far from displaying the hag-like appearance often attributed to the female sorcerer. There is even something decidedly fascinating about her. Shotaye, although near the forties, is for an Indian woman undoubtedly good-looking. No wonder some other women of the tribe are afraid of her. She is tall and well rounded, and her chest is of that fulnesss that develops at an early age in the women of the Pueblos. Her face is even pretty,--her lips are pouting and sensual, the nose small and shaped like a short, pointed beak, the cheek-bones high, while the chin indicates remarkable determination. Magnificent black hair streams down her back. It is as full as a wave, as l.u.s.trous as polished obsidian.

Her dress consists of a buckskin wrap without girdle, embroidered at the lower end with multi-coloured porcupine-quills. Bracelets of white sh.e.l.ls, a necklace of feldspar crystals and turquoises, and strings of yellow cotton threads around her ankles complete the costume. Such is the woman who has played and still plays an ominous part in the history of Okoya's mother, and in the history of the people at the Rito de los Frijoles. Now that we have seen her home and her person, let us proceed with the tale of her doings on the afternoon to which the close of the preceding chapter has been devoted.

Shotaye had been rummaging about in the inner cell of her rocky house in search of some medicinal plant, for that cell was her storeroom, laboratory, and workshop. But as the room was without light at all, she had entered it with a lighted stick in her hand; and just as she had begun her search the flame had died out. So after a vain attempt by groping in darkness, she crawled back to the exterior apartment and knelt down in front of the hearth to fan the coals with her breath and thus obtain another torch for her explorations. At that moment the deerskin robe closing the entrance to her grotto was timidly lifted, and a feeble voice called the usual greeting. "Opona," replied Shotaye, turning toward the doorway. A lithe figure crept into the cave. When near the fireplace it stood still, enabling the mistress of the dwelling to recognize the features of Say, her friend and now fully recovered patient.

But how different was Say's appearance from what it was when Shotaye a few days ago saw her last? How changed,--how thin and wan her cheeks, how sunken her eyes, how sallow and sickly her complexion! Her face seemed to bear the seal of approaching death, for the eyes stared expressionless, the mouth twitched without speaking. But one thought seized Shotaye, that her friend must be ill, very, very ill,--that the old disease had returned in full force and had clutched her anew with perhaps irresistible power. Anxiously she rose to her feet, and scanned the face of the invalid.

"What ails you, my sister," she inquired tenderly. "Has disease come on you again? Speak, sa uishe, speak to me that I may know."

Her visitor only shook her head and glanced about as if seeking a place to rest herself. The medicine-woman gathered hurriedly a few robes, folded them so as to make a cushion near the hearth, and then gently urged Say to sit down on this soft and easy seat. She yielded, and then remained motionless, her gla.s.sy eyes staring vacantly at the floor.

"Sister," Shotaye reiterated, "sister, what ails you? Speak, and I will do all I can for you." But the other merely shook her head and began to shiver. Shotaye noticed the wristbands of red leather on her arms, and it startled her. She asked eagerly,--

"Why do you wear in trouble the colour that should make our hearts glad?

What has happened to you that causes you to seek relief for your distress?" The tone of her voice sounded no longer like entreaty; it was an anxious, nay stern, command. Okoya's mother raised her eyes with an expression of intense misery; she threw toward her questioner a look imploring relief and protection, and finally gasped,--

"They know everything!" Then her head dropped on her knees, she grasped her hair, covered her face and chest with it, and broke out in convulsive sobs.

"They know everything!" Shotaye repeated, "Who know everything?"

Suddenly the truth seemed to flash upon her mind.

"What, the Koshare?" she cried in terror.

Convulsive sobs and groans were the only reply to her exclamation. They amply confirmed her worst apprehensions. "The Koshare know all."

Unconsciously the cave-dweller uttered these words while staring into the remnant of gleaming coals on the hearth; then she became silent.

Neither could Say Koitza utter a word; only from time to time her spasmodic sobs broke the stillness of the room. The bright disk which the light from the outside painted on the wall opposite was fading little by little, a sign of approaching sunset.

Shotaye's features displayed few signs of the terror which her friend's disclosures had produced. Soon her face betokened that fear could not retain its hold long on her resolute mind, that intense reflection had superseded dismay. She turned to her visitor and asked,--

"Tell me, sister, how you came to know that the Delight Makers are acquainted with your doings? Tell me, and do not weep." And as Say remained silent and immovable she crouched beside her, removed her hair gently from her face, then raised her head and placed it so as to rest on her bosom. Then she looked deep into the eyes of the poor woman. They were gla.s.sy and almost lifeless. While thus gazing intently at Say, Shotaye's features changed and became sad and dejected.

It was for a moment only. Soon the expression of hopelessness vanished and the lines of her face became resolute, hard, and determined.

Surprise had yielded to reflection, reflection to pity and remorse. Now remorse in turn gave way to determination. Shotaye felt that she, much rather than her friend, was lost, irretrievably lost; but her energetic nature demanded that she should see the situation clearly. Although the spasmodic hints of Say, her broken words, spoke enough, she wanted more.

Her mind craved the full truth, however terrible it might prove.

Say Koitza had slowly recovered from her stupor. She became quieter and quieter. In the arms of her resolute and sympathizing friend consciousness returned; she sobbed no more, and from time to time would raise her eyes with a look that besought pity, mercy, and a.s.sistance.

The medicine-woman eagerly watched these changes and repeated her previous query.

"How do you know that the Koshare are aware of it?"

"Sa nashtio told me," moaned the poor woman.

Shotaye sighed. This was bad news indeed. She muttered,--

"This is bad, very bad. If the maseua knows it, then the tapop will not be long without notice."

"The tapop knows nothing," breathed Say.

"But how can the maseua have been informed without the knowledge of the other?" Shotaye asked with surprise.

"He is my father," replied Say, and wept aloud. "He is my father, and yet"--she started to rise and grasped her hair with both hands, screaming--"he has to kill me with his own hands!"

So loud and piercing was her shriek that Shotaye was seized with sudden fright. Rising quickly, she ran to the doorway and peeped outside to see if the scream had attracted attention. But there appeared to be n.o.body about, except a few children who were playing and romping in front of the caves and whose cries had drowned the shriek. Rea.s.sured she returned to Say, who was lying with her face on the floor, tearing her hair and uttering low convulsive groans. Shotaye grew frightened, and brought water in a gourd. She moistened her forehead and hands with the liquid, rubbed her face, and thus finally brought her back to some composure.

After drinking some water Say sat on the robes again, shivering and gasping. Her mind seemed entirely gone, the expression of her features was akin to idiocy. The room had grown darker, night was approaching.

As soon as she appeared to be quiet, Shotaye felt tempted to resume her questionings. But she bethought herself of the late hour, and of the suspicion which might arise in case Say Koitza should not be home in time. Still, she must ask some questions; her positive mind required some additional knowledge which must be gained ere she could afford to let her visitor return home. Shotaye returned to the entrance, looked stealthily outside, and listened. Dusk had set in, and the bottom of the gorge was wrapped in twilight. The shrubbery along the brook appeared dim and pale, the lofty pines looked like black monuments. On the southern declivity all detail had vanished, but the top of the southern mesa glistened yet like a golden seam. In the recess formed by the angle of the cliffs which contained her home, the usual bustle of the evening hours prevailed; and laughter, merry and boisterous, issued from a cave opposite that where Shotaye, concealed by folds of the half-lifted curtain, stood watching with eye and ear. In those caves fronting hers dwelt the family of Zashue, Say's husband. Thence sounded the merriment, and the woman recognized familiar voices. Surely enough Hayoue was there; and there could be no mistake, that clear good-natured laugh was from Zashue himself. Shotaye dropped the curtain and turned back considerably relieved. If Zashue was at his mother's and brother's home, she reasoned, he would not return to the big house that night; and since he was so gay, so merry, it was not likely that he knew anything of the terrible accusation against his wife and her. If that were the case there was no immediate danger, since all the Koshare were not informed of the matter. Returning to the hearth she poked the embers, placed on them another stick of pitchy wood, and fanned it with her breath until the flames burst forth, lively and bright. Until then Say had remained motionless in her seat. She had taken no notice of her friend's movements; but when the wood flamed and a warm glow began to spread over the apartment, she started like one whose dreams are suddenly disturbed and began to speak.